Opinions on FAR?

[tremonthedgehog]

Thinking of get installing FAR and I wanted to ask before I install. What is it like flying before and after installing FAR? Easyier? Harder? Or just different

Just want to get an opinion from those who use it

Edited July 4 by tremonthedgehog

[DA299]

FAR's easier in some aspects, harder in others. drag is much reduced from stock aero, so building and flying planes with very low TWR is possible. Spaceplane performance is also improved heavily if you know what you are doing:

• Less drag losses.
• Ability to climb better even with 0.3-0.4 TWR, which allows you to have better mass fractions and carry more fuel (basically more deltaV in orbit )

However, the learning curve is steeper than stock. FAR models real aero, and so to build planes in FAR that fly well you have to expend more effort in the design phase rather than just slapping wings together and praying. Also, lift is reduced from stock, so landing and takeoff speeds are higher.

[tremonthedgehog]

So in the case of this craft would there be better or worse performance?

https://kerbalx.com/CrazedPilot/Duna-Lander-Thingamajig-Mk1

 

Also just curious on how rockets are affected 

[uncertified_engineer]

It's generally great and I do recommend it, but for your convenience i'll put it in a pros/cons list
 

Pros:

- Great aerodynamic simulation.

- Good for challenging yourself with designs

- Fills missed gaps in the original simulation.

- More control over aerodynamics in general, especially with control surfaces, works well in tandem with mods such as procedural wings.

- Many more

Cons:

- Some simulations are left out such as the ground effect, for me this makes things like takeoff and landing more difficult even with flaps/slats, requiring fine movements/adjustments and fly-by-wire mods given that there's no more floatiness near the ground

- It works well with most mods however some mods can affect the simulation, for me some landing gear mods such as kerbal foundries would cause issues with the aircraft, tending to veer off the runway, although somewhat fixable by tuning it correctly.

- There is a slight learning curve, especially with rockets but it's fairly easy to get the hang of.

Overall it's a brilliant mod that very much improves the physics simulation significantly, it's pretty much essential if you wanna make your experience more realistic, all you really need to do is be patient and learn,

[uncertified_engineer]

12 hours ago, tremonthedgehog said:

So in the case of this craft would there be better or worse performance?

https://kerbalx.com/CrazedPilot/Duna-Lander-Thingamajig-Mk1

 

Also just curious on how rockets are affected 

This one says it was tested in FAR so it should work fine, unless you mean something else?

[Dinlink]

In my experience:

- Aerodynamics stability during re-entry feels more accurate (no unstable nonsense from stock Aerodynamics if you have something more complex than a single command module)

- Re-entry is faster and hotter (so, heat shield is almost mandatory for any mission beyond low kerbing orbit)

- Making airplanes to take-off can be hard. One must take care of lateral stability with far back big fat tails to ensure lateral stability during take-off

- Once in the air, the airplane flight almost by itself, just fixing tail trimming, no RCS needed

- Stalling is a thing

- You can recover from a spiral stalling, but Its difficult

I started using FAR because stock was terrible predicting aerodynamic stability during re-entry... And then I couldn't return to stock Aerodynamics because it felt so fake face to all FAR improvements... The only annoying thing that I faced with FAR was the take off stability issue. Stability tools are not that good helping  reducing the design loop of trial and error... And I'm not even sure if the lateral stability is that punishing in real life... Maybe is a bad interaction with the terrible friction model of stock game...

[tremonthedgehog]

On 7/6/2024 at 9:03 AM, uncertified_engineer said:

This one says it was tested in FAR so it should work fine, unless you mean something else?

I was more asking that if put in stock aero, would it be better or worse, no need to test, but based off of your experience

also, how are rockets in general affected?

Edited July 8 by tremonthedgehog

[uncertified_engineer]

On 7/8/2024 at 10:28 AM, tremonthedgehog said:

I was more asking that if put in stock aero, would it be better or worse, no need to test, but based off of your experience

also, how are rockets in general affected?

Well for the first question there's only one way to know 

In terms of rockets, they're much more prone to aerodynamic failures such as flipping, rolling uncontrollably, breaking apart, in FAR high-g motions such as flipping can turn both rockets and aircraft into confetti, there is however a strength/mass increase setting for wings/surfaces.

In general, when designing rockets keep stability in mind, and also being aware of your movements, although really all you need to do is just flip mech jeb on and call it a day. It's relatively easy to understand once you play around with it more.

[tremonthedgehog]

got it, sorry that you are joining the fourm at such a rough time  but i hope that you will stay

[GDJ]

On 7/6/2024 at 3:16 PM, Dinlink said:

In my experience:

- Aerodynamics stability during re-entry feels more accurate (no unstable nonsense from stock Aerodynamics if you have something more complex than a single command module)

- Re-entry is faster and hotter (so, heat shield is almost mandatory for any mission beyond low kerbing orbit)

- Making airplanes to take-off can be hard. One must take care of lateral stability with far back big fat tails to ensure lateral stability during take-off

- Once in the air, the airplane flight almost by itself, just fixing tail trimming, no RCS needed

- Stalling is a thing

- You can recover from a spiral stalling, but Its difficult

I started using FAR because stock was terrible predicting aerodynamic stability during re-entry... And then I couldn't return to stock Aerodynamics because it felt so fake face to all FAR improvements... The only annoying thing that I faced with FAR was the take off stability issue. Stability tools are not that good helping  reducing the design loop of trial and error... And I'm not even sure if the lateral stability is that punishing in real life... Maybe is a bad interaction with the terrible friction model of stock game...

You pretty much said what I was going to say.

As for me, I've been using FAR since it was created. I like the realism and the increase in difficulty.
Makes me a better pilot (at least in my own mind :D).

[Dinlink]

On 7/9/2024 at 10:06 PM, uncertified_engineer said:

In terms of rockets, they're much more prone to aerodynamic failures such as flipping, rolling uncontrollably, breaking apart,

It's true! I forgot about that! I got so used to the "right and sensible way" to make a rocket take off, that I forgot that at the beginning when trying FAR I had to re learn some bad non-sensical practices from stock game...

As previously said, FAR kinda emulates aero-elasticity limits, and aero forces are punishing. So, making a high turn manœuvre during flight (rocket ascension or acrobatic airplanes), the vehicle will tend to split into tiny pieces due to high mechanical stress due to aero forces...

On stock game, I used to correct my bad executed rocket take off during flight, fighting aero forces... As rockets have infinite strength resistance, even if the rocket bend, you cloud safely perform non-sensical in flight manœuvres... Of course when I tried that in FAR ended up with my rocket in pieces xD... My brain learned that fast, and now is intuitive for me to just try a nice gravity turn, and let the dance between aerodynamics and gravity to bring my rocket to orbit...

Another nice thing I learned with FAR is that drag force is a thing!, at least for rocket ascension stability... That means, if you try to go too fast during rocket take off (something like TWR 3-5) ... Your rocket get unstable, flips and brakes into tiny pieces... That I learnt fast and forgot it existed too xD...

So I would summarize, for the aero forces in FAR, for rockets have the following impact:

 - Brake your rocket into pieces of flying sideways at high speed in the atmosphere

- Make your rocket turn around (unstable) at high acceleration during take-off (as result of high drag)

Hope you find my experience useful

[Pauver]

It's great if you want a realistic simulation of your crafts, especially airplanes. However, there are some sacrifices you must be willing to make.

The most important one, in my opinion, is the water. FAR completely messes it up. Makes it behave like some sort of viscous goo, and it also messes with crafts' buoyancy. If you also have Scatterer's waves enabled, be prepared for your craft to jump up and down in the water uncontrollably.

Other than that, great mod, but I wish they'd fix all the issues I've mentioned. 

[OldMold]

Aside from the goo water thing, I think it's a vast improvement over stock and makes life easier once you get some practice. 

Stock aero has lift modeled as a discreet property of a part like a wing piece, which makes it hard to estimate performance. Where as FAR looks at the shape of your vessel to model the aero performance, and is easier to intuitively interpret - pointy things go faster with less drag.

This makes design way more logical and intuitive once you get the hang of it, and spend some time learning the aero diagnostic tools and what they mean.

As a side bonus of this vessel shape approach, FAR helps "fix" some mods that have misconfigured drag cubes on parts, and cargo bays that should logically shield their payloads as expected.